Horn_in_Toronto
250+ Posts
The rapacious desire for profit has been one of the unintended consequences of the 1984 landmark Supreme Court decision that gave schools the right to negotiate their own television deals. The Court ruled that the NCAA had been a "classic cartel" in controlling TV exposures for the previous three decades.
Neinas led that free-market charge as executive director of the College Football Association. The CFA existed for 20 years, disbanding in 1997. It is most famous for being the negotiating arm of 63 core football schools that helped overthrow the NCAA's TV monopoly. That Supreme Court decision was called "the most important event in the history of college athletics" by author Keith Dunnavant in his definitive book "The Fifty-Year Seduction."
Duke believed that the NCAA should have remained in control of football TV to save the sport from itself.
Among those who agreed with Duke was Supreme Court Justice Byron "Whizzer" White. The former Colorado star wrote a dissenting opinion in the 1984 decision that predicted college football "could not trust its competitors."
That sounds more than relevant today. The seemingly unabated race for money has pointed up college football's lack of leadership. There are conference commissioners but there is no overall leader of the sport to oversee them. Left to their own desires, those commissioners, presidents and boards of regents have stumbled all over themselves "to do what's best for (insert school looking at another conference)."
Texas' stand-alone Longhorn Network proved to be too much of a hindrance. The LHN projects to earn a bundle for Texas but it couldn't fit in the Pac-12 after the launch of that league's own network. Like that old NCAA TV plan, the Pac-12 shares revenue equally.
In essence, the free market created long ago by Board of Regents vs. NCAA has collapsed onto itself. Neinas is trying to save the Big 12, a league that can't figure out how to divide revenue, a right granted to it three decades ago in a court battle over ... how to divide revenue.
Replace NCAA with ‘X Conference” and you have the situation today. How long before some disgruntled “have” program gets tired of subsidizing smaller conference programs and demands a shift in conference revenue sharing, or takes the conference to court, wins, and shatters once and for all the entire conference model? Again rightly so. This antiquated model needs to be shattered and replaced with one that values and prices programs more fairly? I mean is it fair that conferences value a Vanderbilt or Baylor at the same level as Florida and Texas?
What’s interesting is that college athletics did not need saving after the Supreme Court ruling. Indeed college athletics have continued to thrive! The likes of Hofstra may not be happy with the rule, but then who cares about Hofstra athletics? It was a patently unfair situation where by OU and Georgia TV appearances were funding Hofstra athletics, which in no way benefitted OU or Georgia. The schools whose sports the nation cares about watching, have emerged stronger and better, and rightly so.
The near collapse of the Big-12 is just a harbinger of what’s to come in other conferences as more and more ‘have’ facing budget cuts and revenue slow downs from other sources, start to demand greater $ for their value to the conference.
Aggy thinks that an SEC network is all but reality. I don’t think they have any idea how much work it will take to set one up. Getting the likes of Alabama, Florida, and LSU to give up their 3rd tier rights will be easier said than done.
Florida is currently earning $ 10 million a year from its tier 3 network deal. Unless the SEC network gives Florida a lot more than that, why would Florida give up its current deal, particularly if ESPN of Fox offers them a deal similar to the LHN.
The LHN is a game changer in so many ways. Many of which will only become apparent in the coming years.
The Link
Neinas led that free-market charge as executive director of the College Football Association. The CFA existed for 20 years, disbanding in 1997. It is most famous for being the negotiating arm of 63 core football schools that helped overthrow the NCAA's TV monopoly. That Supreme Court decision was called "the most important event in the history of college athletics" by author Keith Dunnavant in his definitive book "The Fifty-Year Seduction."
Duke believed that the NCAA should have remained in control of football TV to save the sport from itself.
Among those who agreed with Duke was Supreme Court Justice Byron "Whizzer" White. The former Colorado star wrote a dissenting opinion in the 1984 decision that predicted college football "could not trust its competitors."
That sounds more than relevant today. The seemingly unabated race for money has pointed up college football's lack of leadership. There are conference commissioners but there is no overall leader of the sport to oversee them. Left to their own desires, those commissioners, presidents and boards of regents have stumbled all over themselves "to do what's best for (insert school looking at another conference)."
Texas' stand-alone Longhorn Network proved to be too much of a hindrance. The LHN projects to earn a bundle for Texas but it couldn't fit in the Pac-12 after the launch of that league's own network. Like that old NCAA TV plan, the Pac-12 shares revenue equally.
In essence, the free market created long ago by Board of Regents vs. NCAA has collapsed onto itself. Neinas is trying to save the Big 12, a league that can't figure out how to divide revenue, a right granted to it three decades ago in a court battle over ... how to divide revenue.
Replace NCAA with ‘X Conference” and you have the situation today. How long before some disgruntled “have” program gets tired of subsidizing smaller conference programs and demands a shift in conference revenue sharing, or takes the conference to court, wins, and shatters once and for all the entire conference model? Again rightly so. This antiquated model needs to be shattered and replaced with one that values and prices programs more fairly? I mean is it fair that conferences value a Vanderbilt or Baylor at the same level as Florida and Texas?
What’s interesting is that college athletics did not need saving after the Supreme Court ruling. Indeed college athletics have continued to thrive! The likes of Hofstra may not be happy with the rule, but then who cares about Hofstra athletics? It was a patently unfair situation where by OU and Georgia TV appearances were funding Hofstra athletics, which in no way benefitted OU or Georgia. The schools whose sports the nation cares about watching, have emerged stronger and better, and rightly so.
The near collapse of the Big-12 is just a harbinger of what’s to come in other conferences as more and more ‘have’ facing budget cuts and revenue slow downs from other sources, start to demand greater $ for their value to the conference.
Aggy thinks that an SEC network is all but reality. I don’t think they have any idea how much work it will take to set one up. Getting the likes of Alabama, Florida, and LSU to give up their 3rd tier rights will be easier said than done.
Florida is currently earning $ 10 million a year from its tier 3 network deal. Unless the SEC network gives Florida a lot more than that, why would Florida give up its current deal, particularly if ESPN of Fox offers them a deal similar to the LHN.
The LHN is a game changer in so many ways. Many of which will only become apparent in the coming years.
The Link
